6 embarrassing things you didn’t know about the Arizona Wildcats.. 6. Rufus Arizona, UA’s first live wildcat mascot, hung himself from a tree limb on April 17, 1916—just months after being purchased as the school’s mascot. I suspect he was suicidal after he learned the story of how the university adopted the wildcats nickname. 5. In 1885, when the 13th Territorial Legislature awarded Tucson the University of Arizona (instead of the higher prized appropriations that accompanied the insane asylum or the state capital), Tucson citizens were so angry at receiving a university no one wanted that they pelted their returning legislators with ripe eggs, rotten tomatoes and—foreshadowing their future mascot—a dead cat. Talk about wildcat pride… 4. Nonetheless, U of A heavily promotes that it was Arizona’s first university. What they fail to mention, besides the less-than-proud tradition mentioned above, is that there was little need for a university in the Arizona Territory, which didn’t even have a high school at the time. While the “university” accepted students from its first day of class, the vast majority were placed in a specially established remedial prep school. It took 17 years for university students to outnumber those in prep classes, which were maintained for 23 years. It’s hard not to chuckle when you see a billboard U of A purchased to promote a less-than-proud beginning. 3. U of A’s original school colors were sage green and silver, representing sage brush and the state’s mining industry. However, in 1900, student manager Quintas J. Anderson was offered, at an extremely low price, a set of used solid blue uniforms trimmed in red. U of A bought the uniforms and changed their school colors to red and blue to match the sale-priced uniforms. So much for tradition, originality, or Arizona pride. 2. On November 7, 1914, the Arizona “Varsity” football team was shut out 14-0 by the team from Occidental College in California. Los Angeles Times correspondent Bill Henry, tossing the visitors a bone after a sound defeat, wrote that the Arizona team “showed the fight of wild cats” while getting pummeled by Occidental. For some reason, the fans in Tucson were elated at the newspaper article and eager to adopt the throwaway line of an out of town sports reporter as their school’s mascot. And it’s been Wildcats ever since. 1. Probably the most embracing of them all - UA hasnt won an undisputed conference championship in football since 1936. After winning the Border Conference championship--not a co-championship--the Wildcats head coach, Tex Oliver, left and became the head coach at Oregon. Since 1936, UA has been in the Border Conference, Western Athletic Conference, and PAC-10/12, and still could not field a team that stood alone at the top of a final conference standing.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 00:18:59 +0000
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